Hi, it's Greg. The SEC's the problem, Sankey. Just two weeks after college football officials met in New Orleans to discuss potential changes to future editions of the College Football Playoff, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey is seemingly offering an ultimatum to the powers that be.
In a Monday interview with SEC Network's Paul Finebaum, Sankey raised his continued concerns over shifting the league to a nine-game in-conference schedule. The SEC currently only plays eight and the suggested change would put it in line with every other Power Four conference but more importantly, on even footing with the Big Ten.
Sankey claimed the CFP Selection Committee prioritized teams' win-loss records in 2024 which saw moneymaker Alabama (9-3) miss out on the inaugural 12-team format.
"One of the issues in the room for our athletics directors is what seemed to matter most is the number to the right: the number of losses," Sankey told Finebaum. "How do we understand what that means for our schedule moving forward?"
Commissioner @GregSankey says he's still in favor of moving to a 9-game SEC football schedule "...but not at the expense of opportunity." pic.twitter.com/Gbq0jneiTe
— Paul Finebaum (@finebaum) March 3, 2025
SEC's Greg Sankey is handing CFP committee an ultimatum over scheduling priorities
Sankey tried to make it seem like he's a proponent of a nine-game in-conference schedule but he quickly qualified it with a seeming threat towards the CFP committee about his conference's participation in the postseason.
"I’m one who said I really think we ought to be trying to move towards a nine-game conference schedule. I think that can be positive for a lot of reasons. You watch the interest around conference games," he said. "But not if that causes us to lose opportunities."
Lose opportunities? Like the SEC is entitled to playoff spots just by name brand alone? The Big Ten (which plays a nine-game conference schedule already) and SEC have already semi-monopolized the CFP starting in 2026 when expansion to at least 14-teams is expected and eight spots exclusively designated to both conferences.
Nobody denies that the quality of football is better in the SEC and Big Ten but if your team doesn't have a better record than nine other teams (subtracting conference champions) then they don't belong in the playoff, period. Especially if your conference's scheduling protocol is to add a cushy FCS team in November to pad said record.
If you subtract Alabama's 52-7 thumping over Mercer on Nov. 16, the Crimson Tide actually had an 8-3 regular season with a ninth win only being truly earned if it played another SEC team. That's not playoff worthy whatsoever.
Sankey's losing the plot and is just power posturing so that the CFP and other conferences will kowtow in order to avoid collapsing the only true competitive way to crown a national champion in college football.